Car companies look like a bunch of lying cheaters while the government appears to be sleeping in the gatehouse.

Work on the annual Winners and Losers round-up in the January 10Best issue begins for me on January 1 of the year before with the daily chronicle of vanity, greed, and stupidity otherwise known as the morning newspaper. It ends in late October, when copy changes can no longer be inserted without sparking a union movement in our art department. Thus, due to our magazine’s two-month lead time, ­Winners can never account for a full year’s obituaries and events. Which would only matter if we billed it as such. And actually cared. However, I personally live in dread of big news items, such as these two, happening while our January issue is still just ink being squirted from buckets.

SUZUKI’S SURRENDER: Foolishly, as it turns out, I believed spunky little Suzuki’s day was dawning in ’08 when General Motors sold its stake in the company. Almost since launching U.S. car sales in 1984 with the rebadged Chevy Sprint, Suzuki has been led around on a short leash by GM. Okay, the Samurai debacle wasn’t GM’s fault. Nor, I suspect, was the hardly brilliant idea to rename the Sidekick the Vitara. But GM must shoulder blame for Suzuki swallowing the mediocre Equinox and excreting it as the 2007–2009 XL7. And for Suzuki having to take out Daewoo’s trash in the form of the Reno, Forenza, and Verona.

2010 Suzuki Kizashi GTS

Sure, sales rose, but it was a Band-Aid. Suzuki came to be associated with character-free rental units for C-credit buyers who chase the lowest monthly payment wherever it takes them. Then came the 2008 financial crisis, and suddenly neither Suzuki’s dealers nor its deadbeat customers could obtain credit, and it all collapsed—just as the cars were improving. New homegrown products, including the SX4 and Kizashi, were excellent. The Kizashi was smartly designed and Teutonically solid and dynamic. Rolling up the odometer of our 2010 GTS long-termer was pleasant duty.

But Suzuki dithered, fatally. Plans to import the Swift, a much-admired player in Europe, waxed and waned. Suzuki needed the Swift in the U.S., but nobody in the company could summon the courage to push the button. In 2009, VW purchased 19.9 percent of Suzuki with ambitions to share platforms, but the relationship immediately fell to squabbling and now they’re in court suing each other.

The violent torpedo of truth is that once unleashed by GM, Suzuki didn’t know which way to run, and instead just laid down and died. With its retreat from the U.S., the company is now locked out of what is, thanks to recessions in Europe and Asia, currently the world’s most profitable car market.

Besides annoying the Environmental Protection Agency, Hyundai surely didn’t get many Christmas cards from other automakers this season. That’s because over the past few decades, since being soundly trounced in its battles against rising fuel-economy standards, onboard fuel-vapor recovery systems, and proliferating airbags, the auto industry has kept its head down in the halls of government. New regs, from mandatory backup cameras to side-pole impact tests to the 54.5-mpg fuel-economy standard, have been shoveled onto the industry with barely a squeak of complaint.

2012 Kia Rio5

Though new standards are sometimes dubious and add cost, the industry keeps itself muzzled, partly because some members now owe their existence to bailouts or Energy Department loans (or would like to get one if they need it), and partly to avoid awakening a regulatory dragon that could do much more damage.

And then here comes cheerful, procedurally erroneous Hyundai to jab two fingers into the dragon’s eyes, making everybody look bad. Car companies look like a bunch of lying cheaters while the government appears to be sleeping in the gatehouse.

EPA window labels are largely self-certified by the automakers; they enjoy the bit of wiggle room that self-certification provides in case, say, the test produces a 39.4 figure and the marketers want to bump it to 39.6 for a 40-mpg rating. Also, the EPA seal lends cover when, as in Hyundai’s case, owners sue, claiming that they don’t get the advertised mileage. In those cases, the factory can argue that it just does what the government commands, which is advertise numbers produced using the EPA’s test procedures.

The EPA does its own checks, but practical constraints limit verification to only about 15 percent of the models sold, and Hyundai’s number came up this year. Coming soon: more verification, and more impetus to a switch to real-world data collection for EPA ratings, which will likely drive everybody’s numbers down. Thanks, Hyundai!